Stowaway: San Jose airport security scrutinized after boy's flight to Maui in plane's wheel well

SAN JOSE -- Authorities say a 15-year-old Santa Clara boy is "lucky to be alive" after he ran away from home, clandestinely scaled a fence at Mineta San Jose International Airport, and hid inside the wheel well of a plane flying from California to Hawaii in a case that has shone a harsh spotlight on airport security beyond the terminals.

And according to the FBI, the teen apparently chose his destination at random.

"He ran for the nearest plane. This was not a well planned thing," said Special Agent Tom Simon, spokesman for the FBI's Honolulu office. "Just a runaway kid with a bad idea."

A 16-year-old boy, seen sitting on a stretcher center, who stowed away in the wheel well of a flight from San Jose, Calif., to Maui is loaded into an ambulance at Kahului Airport in Kahului, Maui, Hawaii Sunday afternoon, April 20, 2014.
((AP Photo/The Maui News, Chris Sugidono))

But the idea of how the outcome could have been easily worse crossed the minds of travelers like Nancy Morgan. She was at SJC on Monday morning, headed back to Atlanta after visiting family, just as the story was grabbing national headlines and dominating the morning talk-show circuit.

"It's very frightening because you think, what if somebody hopped the fence and put something bad on the plane," Morgan said. "But I'm very happy the 16-year-old is alive and well."

A congressman who serves on the Homeland Security committee said the startling episode was a reminder of how significant gaps still exist even in an era of ultra-tight airport security that has been in place for a dozen years.

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"I have long been concerned about security at our airport perimeters. #Stowaway teen demonstrates vulnerabilities that need to be addressed," tweeted Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Hayward.

Airport spokeswoman Rosemary Barnes said the SJC's security program "meets and exceeds all federal requirements" and works closely with the Transportation Security Administration and the San Jose Police Department. But the perimeter fence where the boy trespassed is monitored by the airport.

"No security program is 100 percent," Barnes said. "We're continuing to review video to determine where in fact he was able to scale the section of fence line, how he as able to proceed onto a ramp and get himself into the wheel well of that aircraft."

Barnes said the boy, under "cover of darkness," climbed a perimeter fence sometime between Saturday night and Sunday morning. He then walked or ran across the airport ramp and got inside the wheel well of Hawaiian Airlines flight 45 that left San Jose at 7:55 a.m. and landed five-and-a-half hours later at Kahului Airport in Maui.

Barnes said cameras did not capture the perimeter breach, but that there is surveillance footage of "an unidentified person walking on the airport ramp and approaching" the plane.

The Hawaiian Airlines gate is the northernmost gate at the airport, and the northwest area of the airport grounds is not heavily occupied. Barnes said that overnight, most of the gates are occupied by planes, and the first bank of flights typically depart starting at 6:30 a.m.

Also likely to be under close examination is the actual fencing that was designed to keep out intruders like the teen.

"It's typically six feet and in some sections they'll put barbed wire at the top of that," Barnes said. "We have 1,050 acres. That's a lot of fence line. He could have scaled the fence line really through any area here at the airport. It's very easy to do so under the cover of darkness, and it appears that's what he did."

Hawaiian Airlines declined specific comment on the case, but released a statement wishing the boy well and saying the company would "assist various government agencies in their investigation of this incident."

San Jose resident Aaron Lee, 29, was flying to Atlanta on business Monday morning as news crews lined the passenger drop-off area.

"I was surprised," Lee said. "TSA searches us quite extensively and a kid can hop the fence, run onto the Tarmac and into the wheel well of a Boeing 767."

The Santa Clara teen was questioned by the FBI after being discovered at the Maui airport Sunday morning.

"He's seen coming out of the wheel well, and walking on the Tarmac when he's approached by the grounds crew," Simon said. "The plane had been on the ground for an hour before he popped out. He said he woke up and came out of the plane."

"He was unconscious for the lion's share of the flight," Simon said. "Kid's lucky to be alive."

The boy had run away from his family after an argument, Simon said.

A photo taken by a Maui News photographer shows the boy sitting upright on a stretcher as authorities get ready to load him into an ambulance. Simon said the boy was medically screened and found to be unharmed.

That the boy apparently survived -- hours, unpressurized, at altitudes up to 38,000 feet -- literally puts him in rarefied air, as several similar stowaways in the past have died from frigid temperatures, lack of oxygen or being ejected from the plane as the landing gear is lowered.

The last known person to survive as a stowaway in a flight at least that long was Fidel Maruhi, who in 2000 also hitched a ride in a wheel well from Tahiti to Los Angeles, a seven-plus-hour and 4,000-mile trip where the temperature dropped to nearly minus-50 degrees Fahrenheit. He also reportedly blacked out just after takeoff and survived despite his body temperature dropping to fatal levels.

In August, a 13- or 14-year-old boy in Nigeria survived a 35-minute trip in the wheel well of a domestic flight after stowing away. Authorities credited the flight's short duration and altitude of about 25,000 feet.

It's such an incredible story that it's caused experts like John Nance, an aviation consultant with ABC News, to approach it with a healthy dose of skepticism.

"Somebody surviving at 35,000 feet for five hours with no supplemental oxygen supply; I just don't believe it," Nance told "Good Morning America" on Monday.

Nance went on to say that it would be rare for someone to remain conscious at peak-flight altitudes for more than a few seconds and prolonged exposure would lead to brain death. He also said that without protective gear, the odds of surviving the low temperatures and winds blowing through the wheel well are slim.

Slim perhaps, but not impossible, according to Federal Aviation Administration study commissioned in 1996 to explore the rare cases when stowaways survived flights in wheel wells. For some of the survivors, the study stated, the cold temperatures caused them to become poikilothermic, akin to a hibernation state where the body's heart and respiratory rates decreased significantly to adjust to the environment.

The boy was released to child protective services and not charged with a crime, and TSA alerted the boy's parents. The city of San Jose has decided not to file charges against the teen.